Kilo CLI — Installation & Usage Guide

Source: Dev.to

Installation

• Requirements: Node.js v18.0 or later, npm
• Install globally (recommended):

  npm install -g @kilocode/cli

• Or run without installing:

  npx @kilocode/cli

• Verify installation:

  kilo --version

• Older CPUs (no AVX support): download the -baseline binary from GitHub Releases for your platform.

Configuration

Launch the TUI:

kilo

Add your API key interactively:

/connect

Or configure manually at ~/.config/kilo/config.json:

{
  "$schema": "https://app.kilo.ai/config.json",
  "provider": {
    "anthropic": {
      "apiKey": "YOUR_API_KEY"
    }
  }
}

Basic Usage

• Launch interactive TUI:

  kilo

• One‑shot prompt:

  kilo run "fix the login bug"

• Show all options:

  kilo --help

Commands

TUI Commands

Agent Modes (switch with /agents inside the TUI)

Upgrade & Uninstall

kilo upgrade                    # update
npm uninstall -g @kilocode/cli  # uninstall

Resources

• Documentation:
• GitHub:
• npm package: